


sorry i didn't kiss you (but it's obvious i wanted to)

by thereisnowarinbasingse



Series: what about me and you together? [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Sokka (Avatar), No Beta we die like Zhao, Sexism, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, also dont hate me thanks, because arnook is lowkey/highkey sexist!, kya also dies, less comfort more hurt though, please please please tell me if i missed a tag, spoiler:yue dies!, this is going to get real sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27514660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereisnowarinbasingse/pseuds/thereisnowarinbasingse
Summary: [ Sokka shouts for the teacher, hysteria finding its way into his voice as he desperately shakes Yue’s body-The teacher pulls out her phone, fumbling with the passcode-“Blink! Blink if you can hear me, Yue! Come on! No, no, no,no- ”A siren, a flash of yellow and green-The heart monitor flatlines.]title from "bubblegum" by clairo
Relationships: Sokka/Yue (Avatar)
Series: what about me and you together? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010928
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	sorry i didn't kiss you (but it's obvious i wanted to)

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: let's see, major character death, minor character death, there's a very miniscule bit where sokka doesn't eat and i don't know how triggering that can be so it's better to be safe than sorry. please, please tell me if i should add a tag because i want everyone to be safe and be aware that this fic will get quite sad at the end. so, ya know, be careful.  
> you can thank my daily rereads of aeoleus' "a cardinal hits the window" for this- highly recommend!  
> more notes at the end!

Sokka spends the first day of school alone.

Its surprising, seeing as Sokka isn’t one to keep to himself. On more than one occasion, Dad has jokingly threatened to superglue his lips together if he didn’t shut up in the next ten seconds, but it isn’t Sokka’s fault that he’d come up with what was most definitely the _funniest_ joke ever, or that he actually _saw_ Katara sneaking one of the tarts that Mom had specifically told them _not_ to touch, or-

Anyways, Sokka spends the day by himself, colouring in one of the sheets that had been passed around. He supposes that school isn’t absolutely terrible so far. He hadn’t been looking forward to it _at all_ , because spending his entire day, every day for what sounds like 7 billion years, isn’t exactly Sokka’s idea of _fun_. However, Miss Qiu, his new class teacher, seems pretty nice- she’d complimented his colouring specifically, giving him a broad smile, saying that his giant wolf-bat looked “brilliant” and that she was impressed with how he had managed to stay within the lines. Sokka’s chest had puffed with pride and he’d shot a smug look across at Nanouk, an annoying boy who had tried to put Sokka’s colouring in the bin.

Apart from Nanouk and his irritating tendencies, Sokka declares the day in itself a success. The next week goes smoothly as well, and by the next Monday Sokka has managed to gather up a little more courage and, with the encouragement of Miss Qiu, asks some of the other kids if they wanted to play tag at lunch. The other kids nod excitedly, and after Sokka quickly scoffs down the food Mom had packed for him, they’re off, running all over the brightly coloured tarmac.

It’s fun, but only a couple of people are playing, and _everyone_ knows that tag only gets better when there’s more people playing. So Sokka bundles up his courage once again, recruits a couple of the other kids, and begins asking other people from his class. They go around the playground, starting at the sandpit, where a couple of kids are playing. More and more people, _even_ from other classes, agree to play and the game gets bigger and bigger, the square playground alive with shrieks of laughter. Sokka’s bumbling with energy, ready to get right back into the game when-

There’s a girl, from his class, in the far end of the playground nearer the field, by herself. Sokka wonders why he hadn’t noticed her earlier, seeing as him and the others had _definitely_ gone around to that corner to find more players, making sure that they’d asked everyone. He runs towards the girl, who looks startled and a bit confused on his arrival.

“Hi! We’re playing tag! Do you want to play!” he says. The girl still hasn’t lost her confused expression, and even swivels to check behind her even though there’s no one there; Sokka wonders what’s up with her.

“Uh- there’s no one there. I’m asking you.” The girl flushes, and pulls her hands back into her slightly too big, muted blue parka, - wait, parka?

“Hey- you’re Water Tribe! So am I! Cool! What’s your name? I’m Sokka.”

The girl visibly relaxes, and pulls her hands back out of her sleeves.

“I’m Yue. We just moved here from the Northern Water Tribe,” she whispers shyly.

“That’s cool! So, d’you want to play?” Yue’s expression reverts back to its previous, confused state.

“Daddy says little girls shouldn’t run around and play tag like that. That’s for boys, isn’t it?” she says, tone questioning.

“Awh, come on! It’ll be fun, I promise,” Sokka offers a hand, and pulls Yue up.

“Okay,” she says.

* * *

After the game of tag, Sokka sits next to Yue in the afternoon, asking her questions about what life was like in the Northern Water Tribe. He and his family go back to the Southern Water Tribe every year to visit Gran-Gran, but Sokka’s never seen their sister tribe. Gran- Gran says its massive, with huge cities carved from ice, unlike their southern counterpart. But forgive Sokka for being a bit sceptical- after all, Gran-Gran hasn’t been back there in years, and she’s _old._

“It’s cold, I guess.” Yue says, “but I suppose that’s obvious. Your Gran-Gran was right- we have quite big cities, and a lot of river thingys.” Then a little bit of pride seeps into her voice as she says:

“My grandfather is the chief the Northern Water Tribe,”

“So you’re a princess?” Sokka asks.

Yue stutters, blushing- Sokka’s noticed it doesn’t take much for her to flush red. “I, I guess? But it doesn’t work like that, so no?”

“Whatever you say, princess.”

“Don’t call me that!”

After school, Sokka and Yue head out together onto the playground, where Sokka sees Mom waiting for him, Katara clinging onto her hand.

“Hiya sweetie. How was your day? And who’s your friend?” Mom greets.

“Hi Mom! It was great, we played tag at lunch, and it was super-duper fun and guess what- ”

“Woah, slow down,” Mom says. Turning to Yue, she asks, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Yue! There you are, sweetie!” This exclamation comes from a woman, dark hair braided and wearing a blue parka in a similar style to Yue- Yue’s mom.

Yue runs toward her, while Mom, Sokka and Katara walk behind her.

Mom introduces herself with a smile, “Hi, I’m Kya, Sokka’s mom. Yue and Sokka seem to be good friends!”

Yue’s mom relaxes upon seeing Yue and looks up at Mom. “Yes,” she sighs, “We just moved here from the North and its taking a bit of… adjusting, to say the least.” She smiles, and then introduces herself, “I’m Yuka.” The moms continue talking, and Sokka, wired with the energy only a five-year-old could possess, is itching to _run_ or _play_ or just _move_ -

“Hey, Yue,” he whispers, so the moms don’t hear, “Let’s go play!”

Yue shoots him an annoyed look. “My mom won’t let me. I’ll get in trouble.”

“Come on... they’re gonna finish talking soon and then what?”

“Fine. Ugh.” They start to sneak away and then-

“Yue, come back here.” Yuka says sharply. Oh well, Sokka thinks, it was worth a shot.

* * *

It isn’t long until Sokka and Yue become best friends. Yuka and Yue take to walking home with Sokka, Katara and Mom, after discovering that they live relatively close to each other. Some days Yue stays at Sokka’s after school to play, and other days Sokka goes round to hers. Yue’s parents are really nice, but Yue isn’t allowed to play with “boys toys” or run around too much when they’re at their house, and Sokka doesn’t really know why. But Yue’s dad Arnook is always happy to tell them a new story, or even help Sokka learn how to play pai sho. Sokka is surprised by how good Yue happens to be- he’d went into his first game thinking that it’s be a fairly evenly matched and came out five minutes later with a loss and a bruised ego.

When they’re at Sokka’s house, Dad lets them play out in the garden, as long as they include Katara. Sokka can tell Katara looks up to Yue, what with the way that she follows them around like a turtleduckling does a mother turtleduck. Yue does Katara’s hair up into elaborate hairstyles (it seems like hairstyling is another one of Yue’s multitude of talents hidden behind her shy exterior), and it’s her who comes up with Katara’s signature hair loopies- Sokka will never forget the slightly starstruck expression Katara has on her face when Yue does them for the first time, and her look of pride when she figures how to pin the loops back herself.

Sokka remembers that time it snowed out of nowhere in March- school was cancelled, of course, and both families trudged through the thick blanket of snow to Kyoshi Park. They’d had a massive snowball fight (Sokka and Yue had been on the same team, _obviously_ , against Katara and Dad) and come in from the snow sopping wet, much to Yuka’s exasperation. Every year, in the autumn, the three kids- accompanied by Kya- head out for some trick-or-treating. Sokka will never forget the one year when Kya had let them go round one neighbourhood while she waited at the end of the close, and they’d knocked on one door only to be greeted by some crazy cat lady offering them some suspicious looking “herbal remedies” – Mom had to come the rescue, just before Katara accepted something that vaguely resembled a frozen frog. Needless to say, there was no unsupervised trick-or-treating after that.

The pair are inseparable, and everyone knows it. Sokka takes it upon himself to make sure no one ever is rude to Yue, after he catches Nanouk (of course, it has to be _Nanouk_ ) picking on her, telling her she looked like a pineapple with her hair done up in a way she hadn’t done before, and barely restraining himself from slapping him in the face (and he would have, if it wasn’t for Yue being ever the voice of reason and telling him there’s no point getting in trouble for _Nanouk_.) After a couple of years, the two have established a routine of sorts- Sokka, Katara and his mom walk over to Yue’s, pick her up and head to school. In the afternoons, Yuka picks them all up, they spend a bit of time at the local park and then head home.

It changes when Mom gets sick.

Suddenly, Dad’s the one who has to drop the three kids off, and they’re almost always late to Yue’s house because Dad has to make sure Mom’s taken her morning dose of medicine. And all of a sudden Gran-Gran comes in from the Southern Water Tribe to help look after Mom, and they’re getting late to the point that they’re getting _very_ late to school-

Eventually, the routine is broken, and Sokka and Katara begin to get dropped off in the car by Dad.

Long gone are the days of Miss Qiu, and as they get closer to “big school”, as the teachers ominously refer to secondary as, the teachers get stricter about attendance and homework.

Sokka slides into his seat next to Yue one morning, after being on the receiving end of a ten-minute- long lecture Mr Gong, his teacher, gives him about the importance of punctuality. He pulls out his assortment of pens and pencils out of his blue canvas bag, looking ever-so-messy in comparison to Yue, her pens neatly arranged and pastel highlighters placed in rainbow order.

“How is she?” Yue whispers, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. Mr Gong is in the midst of drawing some bar graph that the two of them should probably be paying attention to.

“Okay, I guess,” Sokka explains.” The doctor says that she’s showing signs of improvement and should be fine, but I dunno. She’s still really weak.”

The doctor was wrong.

Now Dad can barely get pull himself out of bed with grief, and Gran-Gran desperately tries to keep herself together as if the loss of her only daughter didn’t completely rip her apart. Katara is silent, and Sokka can tell that she’s somehow making it her fault that Mom is-

That Mom-

So Sokka pulls himself together, shoves all his emotions in a tiny compartment at the back of his brain, and attempts to pull everyone else together too. He helps Gran-Gran keep the household functioning, takes some of the weight off Dad’s shoulders by saying he can drop Katara off at school first and walk to his new school by himself afterwards, and he even helps Katara do her maths homework. He acts like he’s okay, when he’s the farthest from it.

Somehow, Yue knows this.

They go to the park together once after school, just like old times, after dropping Katara off at home. Yue’s parents are a little less strict than they were before, and they let them go as long as they’re back in two hours and before it gets too dark.

The pair sit atop the climbing frame like they’ve done hundreds of times before, and Sokka gazes up the blue expanse of sky that stretches above him. It’s pretty cloudy today- Mom loves looking up and trying to figure out what the different clouds resemble.

Loved. Whatever. He’s trying desperately not to cry.

“Sokka,” Yue says, and somehow that’s all it takes for him to crumble.

They sit there a long time, until the moon is out, shining down onto them. Yue’s somewhat of a astrology nerd, and believes in the spirits- the moon is her favourite. She says the moon’s name is Tui, and has some sort of story with some other spirit called La, but to be quite frank, Sokka wasn’t paying much attention to that particular that story. Yue clutches his hand, playing with his fingers as she comforts him. They’re going to be in so much trouble, but Sokka just can’t find it in himself to care.

“Thanks, Princess,” he mumbles.

* * *

Time passes, and the sadness subsides. There’s no filling the gaping hole Mom left behind, but Sokka is able to patch it up haphazardly. Gran-Gran returns to the Southern Water Tribe a couple of months afterwards, and Dad goes back to work, and gradually life goes back to some semblance of _normal._

What’s definitely not normal are these new… _feelings._

It’s weird, and definitely unfamiliar. Sokka finds himself spending more and more time staring at Yue in class from the back of room, for some unexplainable reason. One day, Yue leaves her hair loose, and Sokka has to tear his eyes away from the sheet of shiny black sweeping the Yue’s back, feeling his mouth getting dry. He feels like _such_ a _creep_.

Sokka tries desperately to bat down these _feelings,_ but Yue just isn’t helping. They still play pai sho, and for all Sokka’s self-proclaimed strategic genius he’s absolutely _terrible_ compared to Yue. Her azure eyes twinkle when she spots an opening, her laugh contagious.

Sokka likes the sound of Yue’s laugh.

They still go out to the park with Katara and sit on the top of the climbing frame. One time, Yue shoves him off the frame in annoyance for teasing Katara about some kid called Jet. There’s bark in his hair, and Yue gracefully pushes herself off the climbing frame, offering him a hand in forgiveness. She picks the bark out of his hair, and Sokka is fighting to keep the blush off his face and his heart in his chest, where it currently thumps painfully against his ribcage.

“All done,” Yue murmurs, pulling the last piece of bark out of his hair.

* * *

As they get older, moving into their teens, more and more people start to take notice of Yue _in that way_ , much to Sokka’s chagrin. Sokka isn’t annoyed about the fact that Yue’s coming out of her shell- in fact, he feels quite the opposite- but he knows that half the boys with their stupid gelled hair and stupid smirks don’t actually care about Yue much, and just want a girlfriend to seem more mature, and Yue just so happens to tick all their boxes. Sokka tells Yue as much, who somehow doesn’t realise that half the year group like her, and she snorts in response.

“Really?” she says, tone sarcastic.

Its only so long until the whole affair actually comes to something. Hahn.

Hahn is probably one of the few people on this earth Sokka genuinely hates. He’s part of the “stupid gelled hair and smirks” category, and Sokka _really_ just wants to deck him in the face, but for some reason Yue actually entertains his invitations, even going on a few dates (if walking around the school holding hands counts as a date) with him. Sokka just wants to scream in Yue’s face, warning her about the fact that he is the _literal_ definition of “asshole”, but Yue seems happy with him.

As long as Yue is happy.

That doesn’t stop them from arguing about it though. The first time Yue goes dead silent, shouts at him for a bit, and storms off. It’s temporary, but Yue doesn’t speak to him for a few days and Hahn seems to take this as an opportunity to gloat in Sokka’s face about it.

“Sorry, Soh-ka,” He sneers. “but it appears Yue has finally come to her senses.”

Did Sokka mention the fact that despite they’ve been going to the same school for 3 years now, Hahn seems to lack the ability to pronounce his name right?

Like most relationships at fourteen years old, it doesn’t last. Hahn decides to make a few snide comments about Yue. This time, Sokka _does_ actually deck him in the face.

Yue’s beaming smile is worth the week’s worth of detention.

* * *

Maths is one of those things that come easy to Sokka. Unfortunately, it is not the same case for Yue.

So Sokka takes it upon himself to lift Yue’s spirits, and with it, her grades.

Sokka begins to tutor Yue in maths. The pair spend an increasingly long amount of time together, if that’s even possible. Sokka and Yue’s take to walking to the library together in the morning, and the hour before school is filled with shoulder bumps and hushed laughter. Yue confides in Sokka how she can’t choose between astronomy and fashion, both wildly different and both of which are things her parents are completely opposed to her pursuing careers in. Sokka tells Yue how he feels useless in comparison to Katara, who seems to be good at everything without even trying. They exchange words of comfort: with each other, they can escape the expectations that seem impossibly heavy on their backs.

Eventually, the maths assessment rolls around. Yue refuses to talk about it afterwards, and Sokka fears that all the tutoring had been for nothing.

The day they get their results, Yue is awfully silent. Sokka asks and asks, but she won’t budge. Until they’re walking back from school, and her face suddenly splits into a wide grin. Katara and Sokka look, quite frankly, alarmed.

“I got a 90! A 90 outta 100!” she exclaims. Sokka can’t help it- he releases an unholy shrieking sound, picks Yue up and spins her around. When he puts her back down, Yue’s face is bright red.

“I’m so proud of you, princess” he says, looking down at Yue, and Yue blushes harder, “but also, what the fuck? How did you keep that to yourself for the _entire_ day?”

“I have an excellent pai sho face,” Yue proclaims in a snotty, upper-class tone. Katara has a stupid smirk on her face.

“Pack it up, lovebirds,” she says, voice bubbling with barely contained laughter. Sokka glares at her.

* * *

Sokka’s continued efforts at quashing his feelings for Yue are proving fruitless. If anything, they’re getting stronger. And Yue continues to be oblivious.

A random Saturday in November, Sokka, Yue and Katara plan a movie night where they cuddle up on Sokka and Katara’s tiny sofa, stealing each others blankets and munching on an unreasonable amount of M&Ms while watching the trashiest rom-coms Netflix has to offer. Yue shows up wearing one of Sokka’s hoodies, practically drowning in the soft grey fabric, and her hair thrown up casually in a ponytail, so unlike her usual put-together aesthetic.

Sokka finds himself liking it.

But Yue’s already exhausted from pulling an all-nighter the previous day revising for a biology test, and half-way through _The Kissing Booth 2_ (and yes, apparently one of those _wasn’t_ enough) Yue falls asleep on his shoulder. Sokka spends the rest of the film and most of the next ( _A Cinderella Story_ : Katara’s choice) watching Yue instead, his eyes memorising every aspect of her face from the tiny freckle on her temple marking her dark skin to the soft slope of her nose. Sokka can practically feel Katara’s grin from across the room- she’d been banished to the lone chair on the other side after she tried to take both Yue _and_ Sokka’s blanket for the _seventh_ time- as he kisses Yue’s hairline. Katara opens her mouth to comment-

“Not. A. Word.” Sokka hisses.

But as the days carry on, Sokka begins to feel like Yue might just like him back. It’s getting easier and easier to make her flush scarlet and make her stammer in embarrassment. Sokka compliments and teases her more and more, just to see Yue turn bright red and feel her breath quicken, her teeth catching on her bottom lip. He thinks it’s cute.

Sokka tries out something new with his hair one day, and lets Katara bead and braid one of the front strands of his hair, leaving the rest of his hair down. Yue looks like she’s about to combust from overheating the entire day, and actually _jumps_ when Sokka addresses her.

“You okay, princess?” he asks.

“Fine!” she practically shrieks, looking anywhere but at Sokka. “I’m fine! Completely fine! Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

Whatever. Girls are confusing.

* * *

Yue’s parents aren’t as strict as they used to be, but they still like to feel some sort of control over Yue and things she does. Yue’s changed too, and is less afraid of the repercussions that come with disobedience. But it still comes as a shock when Sokka receives the text from Yue.

princess 👺🌙:

hey idiot

we’re dying my hair

it’s a WaRrIor’S wOlf TaiL 👹:

wait what

princess 👺🌙:

me, you, dye yue hair

yue no have black hair anymore

better, dumbass?

it’s a WaRrIor’S wOlf TaiL 👹:

okok chillllll

give me 10 minutes

Yue and Sokka head to the local supermarket, navigate their way through the multitude of brightly-lit aisles, finding their way towards the hair-and-beauty section. Yue takes the liberty of shutting her eyes, spinning herself around with her hand pointing in front of her, picking a dye at random.

“Diamond White it is.”

Its not like Yue to be so blunt with her words- that’s been Sokka’s role since practically the beginning of their friendship, and her sudden snippiness is unprecedented. But he knows she’ll say something eventually. Sokka’s just about to actually apply the bleach, its smell wafting all over the tiny bathroom in Sokka’s house, when Yue speaks, her voice so quiet that Sokka wouldn’t haven’t even thought she said anything is it weren’t for the fact that he saw her lips move in the mirror.

“I can’t with them.” And Sokka knows exactly who she’s on about. Her parents.

He lifts his gaze to meet hers in the mirror to show he’s listening, but Yue doesn’t take notice of it.

“They’ve gotten it into their head that they somehow have the right to dictate every single aspect of my life. I know half the time they just want to help, but they think I’m just going to sit down and be a little obedient girl. I’m sick of being that little obedient girl. I’m not that kid who doesn’t know any better, following her parents blindly. My parents have my entire life planned out for me: they want me to get married in five years, Sokka! Five years!” Yue stops to take a breath at this point, and then starts again, voice wavering.“I love my mom, but I can’t afford to make the same mistakes she did! I don’t want to be her! I’m sorry, but is it so bad that I want to achieve something? I want to go to fashion school, I want to start designing, I want to make my mark on the world! And I’m definitely not going to get married off when I’m 20, sit at home all day, and play happy family! It’s not what I want! Why can’t they understand that?” Yue’s voice cracks here, sounding on the brink of tears.

“Hey” Sokka says, ”hey.. don’t cry, princess. You’re not going to have to give your life up like that if you don’t want to- I promise. ”

“It’s okay, I’m here.”

* * *

Yue doesn’t want to go home, so the two of them go out to at some shitty, greasy fast food at some diner instead.

“I look like shit. Screw that, I feel like shit.” she says, giving a watery laugh.

Sokka looks up from his chocolate milkshake, glancing up at Yue. His breath catches.

Yue’s hair is a brilliant white colour now, spilling over her shoulders and providing a stark contrast to her smooth, dark skin. She’s changed out of the massive blue sweatshirt- and Sokka’s pretty sure that sweatshirt was his at some point- that she’s shown up to his house in, now sporting a white turtleneck with a loose lavender cardigan thrown over. Her eyes look impossibly bright under the fluorescent shine of the overhead lighting of the diner, glinting like the sun’s reflection in the sea and-

She’s beautiful.

“What? What’s wrong? Have I got something on my face?”

“It’s nothing.”

* * *

What is probably one of the worst days of Sokka’s life starts rather pleasantly. In fact, he remembers specifically noting the fact he woke up in an especially good mood.

Of course, the universe decides against that and fuck him over _completely._

They’re in P.E when it happens.

In the midst of some game of basketball that they’ve all been forced into playing, Sokka watches as Yue sways and falls to the ground.

“WAIT!” he yells, walking towards Yue, who’s currently lying face-first on the ground in the middle of the court. _Oh_ , is he going to tease her about fainting in the middle of the game- after he gets her out of the danger of getting her skull crushed, of course-

Sokka stops dead in his tracks- and then breaks into a sprint. Yue’s chest isn’t moving. In fact, it looks perfectly still, almost as if-

_No_. No, nononono- this cannot _possibly_ be happening.

Sokka shouts for the teacher, hysteria finding its way into his voice as he desperately shakes Yue’s body-

The teacher pulls out her phone, fumbling with the passcode-

“Blink! Blink if you can hear me, Yue! Come on! No, no, no,no- ”

A siren, a flash of yellow and green-

The heart monitor flatlines.

* * *

The hospital is cold, and smells awfully strongly of lemon scented anti-bacterial soap. Sokka is taken back to another painful day like this- he was younger then, and Gran-Gran had been here, and there was less rushing and more _time_ -

As soon as the paramedics had arrived, Sokka had insisted that he come with Yue to the hospital, but the ambulance hadn’t let him in. It didn’t matter anyway, because Sokka was allowed to leave school early and he had practically ran out of the campus, pulling out his phone and calling an Uber.

Yuka and Arnook had been informed, of course, and are standing right outside the room Sokka had been directed to. Yuka is shaking like a leaf.

They’re only waiting a couple of minutes until a doctor come out, a solemn expression on her face.

“I’m so, so sorry.” she says, as if she isn’t dismantling Sokka’s _entire_ world with her words. “Yue-She, she didn’t make it.”

The woman keeps speaking, but nothing she’s saying is registering. Yuka is crying. Arnook looks like someone just ripped out his heart with their bare hands. And all Sokka can think about is Yue: her hair, her smile, her laughter, her smug pai sho voice-

And Sokka will never experience any of that ever again.

* * *

it’s a WaRrIor’S wOlf TaiL 👹:

this is a joke right?

you’re not dead. you can’t be dead.

its not possible

yue its not funny just answer already

please

* * *

The doctors say that it was sudden cardiac death.

They say its uncommon, but there are warning signs. Like fainting.

Yue has always had a history of fainting randomly and suddenly.

Once, back when they were seven years old, she’s randomly collapsed in the middle of the playground. There had been a huge fuss, and everyone had gathered around her like she was some sort of exhibit in a museum before someone shouted for a teacher. He had been so worried, and Yue had woken up confused as to why everyone was so concerned for her well-being.

“It’s nothing surprising- I just faint easily and randomly. There’s not really a reason for it,” she had explained.

Sokka should have known. Should have realised, should have _done something_ -

* * *

The funeral is small. He faintly registers that Katara is crying. Arnook is wearing a solemn expression on his face, and Sokka briefly recognises the fact that he’s being held up by Dad and Bato.

Yuka’s eyes are puffy and red, as if she’s cried until there were no tears left, her eyes completely dry.

Sokka is silent.

* * *

it’s a WaRrIor’S wOlf TaiL 👹:

i know youre reading this

they were lying

answer the fucking phone

they have to be lying

right?

* * *

“Sokka,” Katara says. “please eat.”

Sokka returns the plate of food without a word.

“Please.” Katara’s voice cracks.

* * *

it’s a WaRrIor’S wOlf TaiL 👹:

why would you leave me?

* * *

Sokka knows his family is worried.

He never even speaks to them anymore, instead heading straight up into his room and flinging his bag down on his bed.

School is such a pain now. The days are filled with whispers he _knows_ are about him, false condolences and people posting on their Instagram stories.

Rip Yue, the stories say. We’ll miss you. As if they’d even spoken to her before. As if they knew how she used to smirk while playing pai sho, and the way she’d wake up early just do to do something with her hair and then end up taking it down in second period. As if they knew that for all her put-together exterior she used to bite her nails furiously, or the way that when she used smile the right side was higher than the other, or-

* * *

it’s a WaRrIor’S wOlf TaiL 👹:

I love you so unbelievably much.

please come back.

please.

* * *

Sokka spends the last day of school alone.

**Author's Note:**

> right- where to begin!  
> 1) it physically pained me to have to write "mum" as "mom". it just looked wrong written "mum"  
> 2) yes, i did slander the kissing booth. have i watched it? no. everyone knows to all the boys i've loved before is the superior 2018-19 netflix teen romance.  
> 3) most of the time i spent writing this was just me not wanting to analyse act 3 of macbeth. a foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.  
> 4) the school system in this is really odd. its basically just the british school system because i didn't know how else it would work in the atla-verse  
> also! i am much more of an artist than a writer? so do i like, post that stuff here, orrrrr  
> feel free to hate on me in the comments :)))))


End file.
